


Howard's Castle

by Port



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Curtain Fic, F/F, Post-S1, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 18:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3457493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port/pseuds/Port





	Howard's Castle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lotsofstuffandpaper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotsofstuffandpaper/gifts).



At the door, Peggy shifted the curtain aside to watch Jarvis walking away down the drive. His arms hung loosely at his side, his gait easy. She imagined he was ticking down a to-do list that started with putting dinner in the oven precisely at six, and ended with seeing his wife soon after. Peggy wondered at her own good fortune, to be this man’s friend. When he crossed out of sight, she turned back to the house--the estate, really--that Howard had loaned her. Polished hardwood floors, high, vaulted ceilings, lavish furniture in the Neoclassical style…. She did truly worry what Howard had gotten up to here, but she had to admit it would be a comfortable home.

“Peggy?” Angie’s heels clacked from another room before she peered into the foyer. “Where’d Jarvis go?”

“I’m afraid he had some other business to attend to,” Peggy said, smiling to see Angie so excited. “He’s left us to explore the rest of the house ourselves. Goodness, is that champagne?”

Angie lifted up the gold foil-wrapped bottle she held. “It was on ice on the kitchen counter. I thought we could christen the place.”

Peggy found herself smiling. This was, she realized, the first time she had been alone with Angie for some time. In fact, she couldn’t think of a time when they had been together without Howard’s case and trouble at work crowding the back of her mind. Angie raised her brows and held the champagne higher. “I’d like nothing better,” Peggy said. And that was true, she thought when Angie took her hand and pulled her toward the kitchen.

A brief search of likely-looking drawers and cabinets in the expansive kitchen produced a corkscrew and crystal wine glasses. They both jumped at the popping sound of the cork coming out when Angie opened the bottle, and Peggy took the liberty of filling their glasses higher than was generally considered proper. Their evening with the schnapps some weeks ago had shown that Angie could have easily--and happily--kept up with the Howling Commandos at their best. Neither she nor Angie had anything on tonight besides settling in, so, Peggy reasoned, why not indulge?

“I like the way you think,” Angie said, grinning as she accepted her brimming glass. “To our new home.”

Peggy gently touched her glass to Angie’s. “Our new home,” she repeated, and sipped. “It hardly seems real. My god, this is divine.” She sipped again, savouring the taste. Angie mirrored her, appearing to also take the time to savour her second sip.

“We should take the bottle with us while we look around,” Angie said.

“I like the way you think,” Peggy said. 

~~

They opened all the doors along their path through the halls, discovering pantries filled with foodstuff and spare china, linens, and a small fortune’s worth of wine. One door opened into a stairwell going down, where they found a cellar with walls honeycombed with wine shelves that gleamed with bottles waiting for the right year to be opened. 

Back on the main floor, they wandered through a dining room with a table so long that it could easily seat half the SSR agents in Peggy’s office, fresh flowers in vases removing any sense of stuffiness from the air. From there, they found galleries, foyers, drawing rooms, all comfortably appointed with antique furniture and brilliant paintings on the walls. Angie and Peggy stopped to examine one in particular. 

“I think I’ve seen this one,” Angie said. “Or one like it?”

“It’s a Monet.”

They stood gazing at it for long minutes.

“Top me off?” Peggy finally said, holding up her glass. Angie obliged and took the opportunity to refill her own glass. They were more than halfway through the bottle already. Peggy felt warmth suffusing her fingers and toes, a strange effect alcohol tended to have on her. She beamed at Angie, who was looking at her fondly. “I’m not drunk yet.”

“We’ll get there together, then,” Angie said. 

“I suppose we will. Cheers.” They clinked glasses and turned back to the Monet.

“So you explained a few things about your job,” Angie eventually said. “I feel a little like I have to get to know you all over again. Silly, I know. I think I knew you from the start, the important parts, who you are inside, when we met, but now there’s even more to find out--no, no, you already apologized for keeping secrets. I get why you had to, so just don’t do it again and we’re even on that score. But there’s so much to you, Peggy. You’re like--an onion with all these layers to peel away, you know?”

Peggy had always thought of herself as a very simple woman. What you saw was what you got, because she did pride herself on straightforwardness and honesty. But if she imagined herself through Angie’s eyes, the woman she saw appeared fractured, uneven, dissembling, strange. Always something held back in her talk about work, living situation, time off, men. Spywork necessitated a certain amount of subterfuge, but Angie had deserved more consideration than Peggy had felt herself able to give.

“I do know, Angie. And I want--I want you to know everything. Everything you want about me and my life. But there’s another thing I want.”

“Oh?”

“If I am an onion, then you are a bottle of wine, from the best year.” She pushed past a bit of her British reserve to continue. “You are worth getting to the bottom of, Angie. I’d very much like to.”

Angie said nothing, but bumped her shoulder against Peggy’s before standing closer. They still faced the Monet, a blossoming garden suffused with sunlight and spotted by shade. 

“I feel like we’re at the Met,” Angie said. “Imagine living in a place like this with your best friend.”

“I don’t think I have to imagine it,” Peggy murmured. Was Angie her best friend? Did she have a best friend? She had a number of very dear friends. The Commandos, Jarvis, Howard, people she had grown close to before the war but who ultimately died or drifted away. Many of her friends from school had married and moved beyond the sphere of the intimacy Peggy had once shared with them. Perhaps Angie would do the same; one day, Peggy would turn around, expecting the other woman to be a warm presence at her hip and shoulder, like now, only to find her instead a cold light on a distant stage.

She studied Angie from the corner of her eye and saw a pink blush on her cheeks. Likely the champagne, but it was also a good moment for them. They were best friends. Or would be. Wanted to be. Had declared their intent. The light emanating from Angie was anything but cold.

Peggy hooked her arm in Angie’s and tucked herself closer to her side. “Let me tell you more about how I came to know Howard.”

The story of her service years accompanied them as they slowly explored the rest of the house, arm in arm, still carrying their glasses and the bottle. Peggy described her work, starting well before Project Rebirth, but not omitting it either. 

“No wonder you can’t stand that dumb radio show,” Angie said. “It must be like salt on a wound.”

Peggy squeezed Angie’s arm. “Quite.”

Leaving behind a hallway of doors left ajar, all the rooms taken note of, they came to an elegant staircase to the second floor. “The bedrooms must be up there,” Peggy said. “Shall we go grab dibs?”

“In a minute, yeah, but I want to finish this floor first. What do you suppose is that way?” She pointed to a closed door across from the stairs.

“Perhaps the library? Let’s find out.”

Neither had pulled away from the other yet, so they strolled like sweethearts away from the stairs. Peggy pulled open the door.

“Oh, my God, it’s a swimming pool!”

~~

It had been ages since Peggy had had a proper soak, and oh, she would need to write Howard a note of thanks for lending her a house with its own spa. She flexed her toes under the hot water, feeling her arches relax even more. Heels did do a number on the foot.

“Now I believe in the brilliance of Howard Stark,” Angie said, leaning back against the wall of the spa that sat behind the swimming pool, allowing water jets to massage her back. It had been the work of a moment to find the controls to heat the water and turn on the jets, which Peggy naturally assumed were Howard’s invention. Perhaps his greatest yet. Neither of them owned a swimsuit or would have wanted to bother retrieving one, so they had stripped down to undergarments and slipped into the water.

Peggy laughed. “Don’t ever tell him that. His head is big enough as it is.” She sipped the last of her champagne. It was okay; there was a stocked bar on the other side of the room. “Angie, tell me something about yourself I don’t know yet.”

Angie gave her a considering look. “I’ll tell you anything you want. But you know we have time for this, right? I’m not going anywhere.”

The losses of the past years rose before Peggy. She took a stabilizing breath and smiled. Steve wouldn’t want her to live like every day was her last, and to be honest, the thought of relating to everybody as though they might at any time be killed did not appeal to her own sensibilities. “You’re right, of course.”

Angie’s toes brushed her ankle under the water, making Peggy laugh. Angie giggled too, and they shared another smile before lapsing into companionable silence. The water bubbled and lapped gently at the sides of the spa, and when Peggy reached out her hand, Angie’s met it.


End file.
